Time Will Tell
by Lirillith
Summary: Muramasa's perspective on his little brother, through the years.
1. Chapter 1

You're fifteen when you find out your little brother's a NEXT. It didn't quite come out of nowhere - he'd been breaking things, and one time he managed to burn himself when he went to get Dad a cup of coffee, which he broke - but he'd always covered for it before. Then one day he accidentally breaks a kid's leg while playing soccer, which happens, but he's really upset about the whole thing, like it's his fault and not just an accident, and then about a week later he comes home with a black eye and your parents get a call from his teacher. Then the shit hits the fan. They order you out of the room while they're having a talk with him, so you sit resentfully in your room, straining to overhear; Dad's talking louder than Mom, and it sounds more like a lecture than anything. You push the door open a crack so you can hear better.

The gist of it, after about an hour with a lot of repetition and a lot of "we're not saying it's your fault, son, but you need to be careful," is that your parents say he should never touch anybody, or anything if he can help it, when he's glowing. Which would make sense if anyone _else_ had a black eye, but that's not what it sounds like to you. Maybe his powers were involved in the broken-leg accident, but a black eye? They're not punishing him for fighting; they're telling him not to touch people at all. They're telling him not play soccer with his friends or fight back if someone hits him.

"So if you've got these special powers, how bad does the other kid look?" you ask, hoping you're wrong about part of this.

"I didn't even hit him!" Kotetsu yells, looking like he's going to cry, and you kind of noogie him without the headlock rather than ruffling his hair.

"Maybe you should next time."

"But Mom and Dad said-"

"Yeah, I guess, but jeez, Kotetsu."

"I mean, what if I killed somebody? NEXTs do that."

He's ten years old and that's what he's thinking? How bad _is_ this power? "Is it the same kids every time?"

He kind of nods, then shakes his head. "Some of the same ones, but not every time."

"Maybe I should start picking you up from school." Yeah, you don't actually have your license yet, but some of the farm kids have been driving on their own since they were fourteen. The town's not small enough that any cop will know on sight you're not one of them. "Run 'em over if they give you problems."

"Maybe," he says, dubiously, and you know it probably won't help, because there's still lunch, and gym class, and a lot of ways to make somebody's life miserable without punching him, but dammit, no one smacks your little brother but you.

* * *

You've just turned sixteen when your father gets a call at the store from the Stern Bild police and your mother, at about the same time, gets word from one of the other teachers at the high school that she needs to come to the teachers' lounge like _right now_ to see what's on the news. And you're at home, watching TV and ignoring your homework, when your father calls to tell you your brother's somehow gotten himself to Stern Bild where he got into the middle of a bank robbery, somehow, and can you get on the train and go get him? You want to drive, but your father says no way in hell you're driving that far on your own three days after getting your license, so while you're getting ready to go to the bus station, your mother calls, with the exact same news. And finally you leave, an hour later, thinking it would have been easier for Dad to just close the store.

It's before cell phones, so you're clutching handwritten directions - what bus lines to take, where you can find your baby brother - and scared to death you'll lose them. And you have a two-and-a-half hour train ride to spend freaking out. He's probably not hurt, or your parents would have said, but still. In your head he's still the five-year-old who wanted to play your video games even though he was _terrible_ at them, and if you peel back a layer, he's really still the baby who started walking at nine months old, and then at about a year started bonking his head on furniture he used to be able to run right under. How the hell is he big enough to get himself on TV without anyone even knowing?

You get off the train in Stern Bild, you go looking for the bus, you check your wallet every five minutes for your brand-new shiny license so you can prove your brother belongs to you (well, kind of - it's not like _he_ has any ID) and when you get off the bus and walk a block to where all the helicopters and cars are clustered, you find your idiot brother sitting in amongst a knot of cops with a blanket around his shoulders and a huge, shit-eating grin on his face. He doesn't look the least bit scared or traumatized or anything. You really want to yell at him - you were _supposed_ to spend this evening hanging out with a bunch of your friends, and Sakura was going to be there, and you were going to get to use your license and show it off and everything - but there are cops all around so you just tell him, gruffly, "Mom's going to wring your neck."

He tells you about Mr. Legend like fifty times on the train trip home, complete with sound effects.

* * *

It was all over the news back home, but that didn't help, apparently, or maybe made it worse, because you stumble on some little shits from the junior high looming over him, and without even thinking about it you're over there, spinning one around by the shoulder, grabbing both of them by the fronts of their shirts and slamming them against the chain-link fence. Maybe it would have been more effective if it was a wall, but from the way they're squrming and babbling it seems like it worked okay as is. "So how's it feel having someone bigger than you picking on you?" you ask, and one of them starts on about how the kid's a NEXT, so you toss his buddy aside and cock your fist to hit him, and he flinches.

"So you're scared of me and not of the NEXT," you say, scornfully. "Yeah, it was a totally even fight here, you and your friend against him."

"Muramasa, let's just go home," Kotetsu says, and you let him tug your arm, you let go of the bullying little asswipe, and as you pass his buddy, who hasn't gotten up, you kick him in the side. You've never been in a fight before, and you're still keyed up and angry by the time you reach the house.

"Tell me if any of them do that again," you tell Kotetsu, and he says he will. He doesn't, of course. It'd be nice to think you're just such a badass no one ever bullied him again, but you're pretty sure that's not how it went.

* * *

You go off to college, and news from home comes in little bursts - the store's doing fine, it's time for parent-teacher conferences, Kotetsu's grades are doing better - and visits home at the holidays. You come back that first Thanksgiving and there's a new fridge and Kotetsu's three inches taller. At Christmas he's gotten his hair cut and his voice is cracking. When you come back for the summer it suddenly hits you that your dad's got a fair amount of gray in his hair and your mom's starting to go gray too.

Every time you see him it seems like he looks different. For a while when he's thirteen he tries to nurse the dozen wispy hairs on his chin into a ridiculous-looking goatee, and the second Thanksgiving you catch him checking out your girlfriend. You're mostly just shocked he's old enough to want to. Then you're in your senior year and _he's_ got a girlfriend, or at least a girl who's a friend and who comes by to look for him after Thanksgiving dinner is over. And who's pretty obviously into him, and he's obviously nuts about her, but when you call her his girlfriend the next day he flushes brick-red and insists it's not like that. It just makes you feel kind of old, or like you should knock their heads together and explain it all to them while they're dazed, but whatever. They'll work it out.

* * *

They do; she's his date to your wedding to Ayame. You're twenty-four, he's eighteen, and he's telling you about how they're both going to SBU. He's following his high school girlfriend to college - that's not going to end in tears at all, you think, but it's not like he'd want to hear it, and you're married to Ayame, who looks gorgeous right now, and you don't really feel like being cynical today.

* * *

Dad dies when you're twenty-seven, a sudden heart attack. He was sixty-one. You take some time off work to go home and help with the funeral arrangements, and then you feel stupid because your mother never, ever needs help with anything. But it does give you a chance to talk to her about the liquor store, about the family, and make some decisions.

You pull Kotetsu aside after the funeral and tell him what you're planning. "Huh," he says. "You really want to do that?"

"Yeah," you say. You really do, because the store isn't just the Family Business, it's the place you played when you were little (maybe not all that legally, but you did,) it's been your summer job since you were sixteen (again, maybe not that legally,) and it reminds you of Dad. You don't want it closed down or sold, and you'd rather work there than at your job in accounting. You can be your own boss, keep a family tradition going. And someone should be here with Mom, since it's right in the middle of Kotetsu's semester at school; he won't be home for months. Mom's pretty much unstoppable, but even forces of nature can get lonely. "Obviously you don't."

He shakes his head. "I'm going to be a Hero." That's how he says it, all capitalized, kind of reverent, and several bits of info click into place - the Legend obsession, that rescue a decade ago, the way he watched Hero TV all the time - and you wonder how come this is the first you've heard of this plan, which has obviously existed for a long time.

"Well, good luck," you say, because you have other things on your mind, like how Ayame's going to take the news. She didn't want to even go out with you, for a while, because she just wanted to get the hell away from Oriental Town, not go off to college and date some guy she knew from high school. You hope she's mellowed out about it, but you're not really sure.

* * *

Kotetsu's twenty-two, freaking out right before the wedding. You're picking lint off his flashy white tux while he mutters "oh god oh god oh god" under his breath, and Antonio keeps telling him to breathe. You don't think that's actually going to help much, but you're not really sure what would, and at least Antonio's trying to do his duty as best man.

Your own marriage went down in flames. Ayame had not relaxed her stance on your hometown one bit and she didn't appreciate you making decisions like this without asking her, and at least the second part of that, you have to admit, was fair. While you were still trying to train your mother so she could run the store in full - she'd done the books for years, ever since she took early retirement from the school, but couldn't operate the cash register - and you could move back to Stern Bild, Ayame's patience ran out. You don't figure Kotesu wants any advice from you right now. But then he says, "Bro. Help. I have no idea what I'm doing."

"No one ever does," you say. "You'll lay eyes on her and it'll be fine. Just don't panic."

"Okay," he says, exhaling like that actually helped somehow.

"And it helps if you discuss dealbreakers _before_ the wedding, but it's a bit late for that," you add. Antonio looks like he can't tell whether or not he should laugh, and then Kotetsu _does_ laugh, and the three of you are still grinning at each other as they take their places.

* * *

Kotetsu's twenty-five, and you and Mom are watching him on TV. He's calling you both, all excited, on the new holo-screen phone, to tell you Tomoe's pregnant. He's twenty-six, picking you and the Amamiyas up at the train station in his new, dad-like SUV and driving to the hospital. He's twenty-seven, twenty-eight, sending Mom pictures and moony texts about Kaede's perfection and adorableness, videos of her toddling and eating and playing. He's King of Heroes. He's got everything he ever wanted.

He's twenty-nine, and Tomoe's sick. You drop your mother off at the train station so she can help them out; she and Mrs. Amamiya alternate months. Kaede doesn't understand, Mom tells you over the phone. She's acting out because she misses her mother whenever Tomoe's gone overnight. Mom looks tired on the phone's little screen, and Kotetsu looks like hell. You never see Tomoe, really, so the worry about them is a lot more present in your mind; it's easy to think Tomoe will pull through, until you go to visit her in the hospital and you see how little of her there is left. She's gotten so thin, and she just looks tired, in a way that makes Mom's weariness look like nothing. You hug her carefully, afraid she'll break. It's the last time you ever see her.

Kotetsu's thirty, and the funeral's over, and he can barely talk. There's nothing you can do to make any of it better.

Not directly, anyway. Kotetsu's still trying to do the Hero thing, running off to take calls while Kaede's at preschool; his ranking's suffering for it, because sometimes he can't leave, and he's obviously not doing so great even when he's there on the scene. Mom's the one who brings it up, pointing out, gently, over the course of several conversations, that Kaede needs to have someone stable around. He's been leaving her with babysitters nights he thinks there might be crime, he's been late to pick her up at preschool - three hours late, one time - and it's not doing her any favors. First Mom goes to stay with them for a couple of months, and then when she comes back you meet her at the station and she's got Kaede with her.

She'd been hoping to bring Kotetsu back too, you know that, but you both know him too well to expect the first try would have worked.

* * *

Kotetsu's turning thirty-five soon and you've seen him in person all of three times since the funeral; once for Kaede's fifth birthday, once for Christmas when she was six, and a random summer weekend when she was seven. There've been visits - Mom taking Kaede into Stern Bild for a few days, a week - but she's never felt very safe in the city, for good reason, and Kaede's gotten old enough to get annoyed that her father keeps ditching them mid-visit instead of just taking it for granted that grownups do that. You still think not telling her was a mistake. Sure, when she was little, that was one thing, but she's nine now, which is old enough to keep a secret, and you'd think Kotetsu of all people would know that. If she understood she might not get so upset, because as it is, she thinks he's just ditching her because he doesn't want to see her.

Or he could retire - his ranking tanked when Tomoe got sick and it hasn't recovered since - but he won't even hear of it and Mom's asked you to stop bringing it up. You usually leave the phone to Mom and Kaede, anyway. You were never very good with phones, and it just pisses you off to see him, looking tired or faking happy or legitimately happy because he just talked to Kaede, but plugging away at something that most people retire from after half the time, when his daughter needs him. Kaede's a good kid. She's adorable, and smart, and funny, all the things Kotetsu likes to coo about her in the same tone he's used since she was a toddler, because he doesn't seem to realize five years have passed and she's not four anymore. You know these things about her because you're here, and he says them because he's her father and he'd think them even if they weren't true. She's smart enough to tell the difference.

You stop watching Hero TV. You're sick of watching him making a fool of himself in public. "Crusher for Justice" - like he doesn't ruin thousands of people's days, maybe costing some of them jobs, every time he disrupts traffic, forces them to close off a freeway or a train line. And it doesn't even do anyone any good. He comes in last, two seasons in a row, and his sponsor company's failing. He should retire.

Instead he gets a new employer, a fancy suit - whatever happened to that suit he and Tomoe designed, the one that determined his sponsor because no one else would let him come up with his own costume? - and a partner, this young prettyboy Kaede's got a crush on. _That's_ not going to be awkward in the least if Kotetsu ever shows up at the house again, or lets her come for a visit. At least if he figures the crush out, which he very well might not. But that's Kotetsu's problem; you've washed your hands of all this hero business. He and Mom have worked out something between them, and if you think it's a bad idea, well, part of being family is knowing when to mind your own damn business. Kaede's your niece, not your daughter or granddaughter, and while you know it hurts her feelings when Kotetsu breaks a promise, he's at least been making fewer of them. Maybe he's capable of learning.

And sometimes she has to acknowledge it's not his fault. Like when the bridge out of town blows up in front of him.

Not that she could tell him right away. Phone calls won't go through to Stern Bild - a lot of the cell towers are damaged or destroyed, and on top of that, a lot of the twenty million people in the city have family somewhere else who are trying to call them to find out if they're okay. Even calls on the land lines won't go through all the time, and people are being asked not to make non-emergency calls so as not to overtax the system. You think about keeping the shop open, so the regulars can come in like they always do, talk it over, but the local news channel is running steady ribbon of closings and cancellations under the footage, and it seems like people just want to be home with their families. There's a little conversation, folks coming in to buy a few bottles, but instead of pleasantries the obvious question is, "you have anybody in the city?" And you do, and you can't just say he's safe. Obviously no one wants to stay after that.

And then around noon they have a big press conference about this Barnaby kid, his dead parents and his connection to all of this, fighting crime to avenge them. Kaede's probably eating it up with a spoon. If it's real, that might explain some of it - Mom's been sighing, "oh, he doesn't like his partner," at night after Kaede's gone to bed. That's how you get all your Kotetsu news anymore, second-hand from Mom or Kaede. To Kaede, he's her stupid dad, and Barnaby's boring old partner, two separate people. If Barnaby's really that single-minded, that focused, no wonder he and Kotetsu couldn't get along. Kotetsu can be pretty damn single-minded himself, when he wants to focus on something, but he'll always _seem_ scattershot, he'll always learn by screwing up first and getting it right later, and he'll never ever _explain._ He'll always think it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission. He'd drive a perfectionist - no way is this kid _not_ a perfectionist, look at that hair - batshit insane.

The press conference seems like a distraction, to you, something new to put on the news while they wait for something to happen. It's as clear a signal as any that you might as well close up shop, head home, be with as much of your family as you can get in one place. You wonder about Ayame, if she and her new husband are still living in Stern Bild, but if you can't call Kotetsu you sure as hell can't call your ex-wife.

Of course at home they have on Hero TV, because Kaede's a fan now and Mom's worried about Kotetsu. They sit on the kitchen chairs - you don't even know why you bought the TV in the living room, no one uses it - and you stand in the doorway, arms folded, trying to look solid, like Dad always used to, because this is pretty damn scary, and Kaede needs to feel like someone's there keeping the world from falling apart. You kind of hope that's Kotetsu, but she can't know that. Besides, the whole city's held hostage, and forget fighting the terrorists, the heroes can die just like anyone else if the city's supports are knocked out like this Ouroboros has threatened.

It's getting on towards three when "Jake" - he's on a first-name basis with the entire country now - announces he's going to fight the heroes, and if they win he'll spare the city. Like this is some kind of goddamn arcade game. Like he missed playing Street Fighter while he was in prison. He calls Sky High out for a fight, and the newscasters sound hopeful and they show shots of hopeful-looking crowds, but you've got a bad feeling; this guy may be nuts, but he couldn't have hooked up with a group that could coordinate something like this if he wasn't some kind of threat.

He wipes the floor with Sky High. That'd be bad enough on its own, especially since Jake's girlfriend hijacked the broadcast and reruns the part where Sky High gets thrown halfway across a football field for half an hour, but then the broadcast switches abruptly, to Jake's face. "We're giving back your king," he says, and the camera shows him shoving a limp body out of a helicopter. You hear Mom gasp, and Kaede shrieks; it's almost a full minute before they're far enough away that you can see that he didn't fall. It's almost worse; he's hanging by his outstretched arms from something, up high.

"Is he dead?" Kaede quavers.

You can't actually answer. She's got enough adults lying to her.

* * *

Eventually the terrorists relinquish their grip on the TV broadcast for a while, and the news reports that Sky High is hanging from the Poseidon Pegasus, like that's supposed to mean anything to people who aren't from Stern Bild, and you spend half an hour watching a rescue crew trying to get him down. They report excitedly that he's alive, and all three of you exhale in unison, and then Jake breaks in to draw a card, this time; you wonder when it'll come to pulling a hero out of a hat.

It's Antonio. You don't say anything, and Mom doesn't say anything. You couldn't, really; if Kaede knew an old friend of her dad's was a hero, that might be the final straw that makes her look past that stupid little mask he wears and recognize how much the man next to Barnaby in all the pictures looks like her father. So you have to keep your mouth shut even when Jake throws Antonio across the field the other way from where he threw Sky High, and then about ten minutes later he's hanging by his shoulders from what the announcers tell you is the Kronos minotaur. You think, blankly, that explains some of the weirder things about his costume, as you look at the distance shot.

"How is that possible?" Mom asks you, in Japanese. "I thought his power was being invulnerable."

"His skin gets really tough. I guess not tough enough," you say. Or maybe it was something internal - if your skin and bone are too strong to break, maybe your innards can be damaged against them; brain impacting skull, lungs crushed against ribs. You don't like this train of thought. Antonio's a good guy; he was there for Kotetsu after Tomoe died, when no one else really was. Including you.

"Why are you guys speaking Japanese?" Kaede asks suspiciously. "What are you talking about?" She only knows bits and pieces; Kotetsu and Tomoe must not have used it much at home. Convenient for you and Mom, when there are secrets to keep.

"Just habit," Mom says. "It's my first language, you know. When I was a little girl-"

"I _know,_ Grandma," Kaede says, focus shifted to fending off another story about the old days, and Jake doesn't even bother with letting anyone watch the rescue, this time, just pulls the next two, some stupid game with walking teddy bears; it doesn't matter. It's time for your kid brother, the one who learned he was too tall to run under the kitchen table by repeatedly running full-tilt into the kitchen table, to fight the psychotic terrorist who just put the indestructible man in the hospital.


	2. Chapter 2

It's a nightmare to watch, because you already know how it's going to end. Even when he's using super-speed, Jake avoids him every time, jumping around and laughing like it's a game. Your nail-prints will stay in your palm for hours afterwards. Of course he won't even land a blow, of course he won't surrender when he knows he's beaten. He uses up his time and he keeps trying, flailing around trying to hit the guy without his powers; the way Jake dodges Kotetsu might as well be blindfolded. Of course he doesn't give up - he's Kotetsu. And then he manages to trip and fall on his ass and kick Jake in the head in the process, and Jake goes berserk, stomping him into the ground. His mask breaks, you make some kind of involuntary noise - that stuff's supposed to be bulletproof, according to Kaede - and Jake flings him across the field with his forcefield or whatever he's using. The camera zooms in jerkily to keep up. Kaede starts crying, and Mom hugs her and buries her face in Kaede's hair to hide her own eyes. Then abruptly the broadcast cuts out and you're seeing an ad for laundry detergent, with kids and a puppy romping through a yard. The ad jingle and Kaede's sniffles are the only sound in the room for a moment.

You didn't know how it was going to end, or you would have sent Kaede to bed first. No kid needs to see that happen to her dad, and sooner or later she's going to know it was him. You just hope it's not sooner. She's scared and upset as it is, thinking it's a stranger.

"That's enough for tonight," you say. "Kaede, it's time for bed."

"No!" Kaede says. "You can't tell me what to do! You're not my dad!"

You just sort of stare at her open-mouthed for a second. Of all the lines to pull at a time like this. And if she's like this now, her teen years should be the stuff of legends.

"I want to see if he's alive," she says, quieter, and you can't really fault that, but you hate to back down. You meet Mom's eyes, and you sigh and nod.

After the commercials end, you see Stealth Soldier, looking a little pale and shaken. He reports that the matches are being discontinued for the night and will resume in the morning. He says they'll report on Wild Tiger's condition as soon as they get word; that the terrorists are allowing a medical helicopter in to retrieve him. That's something, anyway. He says Sky High and Rock Bison are both in stable condition at the hospital, he starts talking about how Origami Cyclone was injured in a covert operation, and you start thinking about logistics - the helicopter's round trip from hospital to stadium and back, time for the doctors to treat Kotetsu's injuries, time for the reporters to get the information and release it. How long would it take? Hours? How badly is he injured? Is he already dead?

If he is dead, would they even release the info on the news? Stern Bild has to be a powder keg right now - if a hero was reported killed, they might be dealing with chaos and rioting. Maybe in two or three days you'll hear that he died of injuries sustained fighting Jake. If anyone makes it out of the city alive, in the end.

You turn and walk out, in too much of a hurry to grab your coat. You don't want to go back in for it, so you just walk, fast, to warm yourself up, and maybe you can outrun your thoughts a bit. At least it's quiet out here, no ads, no Hero TV fanfare, no voices droning on. No Jake. You go maybe three-quarters of a mile before you start to wonder if Mom has her hands full with Kaede, and then you turn back. You feel, if not calm, at least resigned. Nothing you do can affect what's happening. All you can really do is wait.

No, there's one other thing.

You forgot your coat, but you remembered your cell, or rather, never took it out of your pocket to charge it when you got home from the store. It's a little low, but it should do, and you can at least try to get a call through. It's late, so maybe the load will have died down some.

So you hit Kotetsu's number, and you wait. He wouldn't have taken his cell phone with him; it'll be somewhere, his office, a company locker room, maybe. Someplace he went during the day. Assuming he didn't leave it at home or in his car, but it's worth a shot. If someone's around to hear it ring, maybe they'll pick up, and you might be able to get more info from some hero or office drone or cameraman than you would from a hospital.

"Hello?" Bingo. It's a young man's voice, vaguely familiar. "Who is this?"

You're still trying to place it. "Muramasa. Kotetsu's brother."

"He's unavailable right now," the young man says. Barnaby. The kid, Kotetsu's partner. You heard him at the press conference.

"I know that. He's in the hospital, or headed that way, if he's alive. Do you know anything more?"

Silence. "For reasons of his privacy-"

"Look, I know what my little brother does for a living. I just saw what happened to him on live TV." Your throat feels tight and sore, constricted with all the things you haven't said out loud for years and years, and especially tonight. He doesn't answer right away, and you add, "And where were you, anyway? Aren't you supposed to be his partner? Jake pulled your cards together."

"There was no indication Jake intended to take on two of us at once," Barnaby responds, his voice sounding tight. Maybe that's just how it always sounds. "He only gets in my way, and he prefers not to rely on me."

Nobody talks about your little brother like that. "Maybe he's got a damn good reason for that, you snot-nosed little punk," you snap, before it occurs to you not to piss him off. "You ever think to ask him? Why'd you even pick up his phone if you can't stand him?"

"Excuse me?" His voice is sharp, but he hasn't hung up yet.

"I don't know anything about your teamwork. I don't care. What I care about- my niece just saw what happened to him. She doesn't know he's a hero, she just saw Wild Tiger - she saw what happened. And if we have to tell her that her dad was a hero and she saw him get beaten to death, I'd like a little time to prepare."

There's a long silence on the other end of the line. You glance at the phone to be sure he didn't hang up. Finally, he says, "All I know is that he's alive and in critical condition. They aren't lying to the reporters."

Manners should probably win out over big brother instinct. He did answer, and he stayed on the line. "Listen, I'm... sorry. At a time like this I didn't want to hear anyone-"

"If I can reach you at this number, I can call you back once I learn more," he says, interrupting you.

"Uh, yeah," you say, caught off guard. "I'd appreciate that."

* * *

It's a couple of hours, enough time for you to figure he forgot. Enough time for you to get back to the house, pour a couple of stiff drinks for yourself and Mom, and sit with her talking for a while. You tell her what little you know, but at least you figure it's probably true, coming straight from Kotetsu's deadbeat partner. "So at least he's not dead," you say.

"Still think he's making a fool of himself?" Mom asks you, a bit sharply, and you groan inwardly. You've tried to explain so many times. It's not being a hero you think is stupid, it's the catchphrases and poses, that ridiculous way he puffs up like a balloon, all the property damage that doesn't even accomplish anything. And all the while Kaede's growing up without him.

"I don't think he looked like a fool there," you say.

"You know, he promised Tomoe," Mom says, which would probably sound like a complete non-sequitur to anyone else. It still comes out of the blue, but you and she have had this discussion before. It always comes around to why he didn't give up being a hero to take care of Kaede, so that's what this is about, and Tomoe was just as enthusiastic about the hero thing as he was.

"That he'd stay a hero?" you say. Mom just nods, and sips her rum and coke. "I didn't know that. Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"It took him two years to tell _me,_" she says. "I didn't think he wanted it spread around. But didn't you ever think he had to have some reason?"

No, you hadn't. You'd just chalked it up to stubbornness, or selfishness, even; you know he loves Kaede, but he might feel like life without her, without the responsibilities, where he gets to be a hero, is worth missing her. Or maybe he just wanted to retire on a high note, rather than slinking off at the bottom of the charts. But mostly you hadn't thought about his reasons at all.

The TV runs in the background, on mute; replays of the earlier fights, interspersed with shots of Stealth Soldier talking. Analyzing, you figure. You and Mom both glance at it from time to time, hoping for the runner at the bottom of the screen to say something about Wild Tiger. You bring up the secrecy thing again, and Mom stonewalls you, again, because it's for her and Kotetsu to decide, and it's the same old circular discussion. That's family for you. You know how the argument goes and you have it anyway. The phone ringing makes you both jump half out of your skin, but you remember the agreement then and fumble your phone out of your pocket. You don't recognize the number, but it's a Stern Bild area code. He must not have wanted to keep using Kotetsu's phone.

"Is this... Muramasa Kaburagi?" Barnaby asks. He nearly stumbles over your first name.

"That's me. Any news?"

"He's in serious but stable condition. They wouldn't tell our director much more than that, but I was in the room during the call, so that's not merely a media report." Huh. So the kid is nearly as cynical about the Stern Bild media as you are. Then again, he sees it firsthand. "He's out of surgery and he's been moved to the same specialized ICU where the other heroes are recovering."

You need a minute before you can speak, but you finally manage to exhale and say "Thanks. I mean it. Sorry to... put you to the trouble."

"It's no trouble," he says, politely. "Good night." That's it, no pleasantries beyond that. Kaede's idol. He must come off more suave in the teenage-girl magazines, or online videos or whatever girls follow anymore. At least he was tactful enough not to ask you to erase his number, or else he forgot. You realize after that you should have asked more - any spinal injuries, head injuries, will Kotetsu be able to walk and talk after all this - but he might not know, either. You tell your mother, and you both get new drinks, and you sit up late, even after Mom goes to bed. _He only gets in my way, and he prefers not to rely on me,_ you think. It figures. He never did learn to play well with others.

* * *

The next morning is gray and cloudy, like anyone needs help being depressed and scared, and Jake's on TV like a morning show host, saying he'll destroy half the city if Barnaby loses. _No pressure,_ you think, but you don't feel like explaining gallows humor to Kaede, so you don't say anything. It's strange to think you were talking to this complete stranger on the phone last night and now you're watching him on TV, but you obviously can't say anything about that, either. So you're back to standing in the doorway, without the work apron - though you put it on this morning out of habit before you remembered - and watching over their heads. It's raining in Stern Bild, it looks like.

Barnaby's the "revenge boy who is out for revenge," according to the runner at the bottom of the screen. It'd be kind of funny if there weren't millions of lives at stake, but Kaede's indignant. "They killed his parents and now they're making fun of him!" she protests, and Mom has to remind her to eat her breakfast. And you, too, so you manage a piece of toast to appease her. She's not eating anything, just drinking green tea, and you have no appetite.

"He's not using his powers," Kaede says, as the fight goes on. She hasn't budged from her chair; Mom's the one gathering the dishes.

"How can you tell?" you ask. With Kotetsu, it used to be really easy - that weird-looking way he puffed up, it made him look like he was on steroids - and last night he was zipping around with super-speed, but you can't see anything about Barnaby to let you know.

"His suit lights up when he's using them. Wild Tiger's, too," she says.

That's the last any of you speak for a while. Barnaby seems to be taking less of a beating - he's rolling with the barrier attacks more, and since he's not powered up he doesn't have as much momentum to be used against him as Kotetsu did, or even Antonio - but it still adds up as the fight wears on, and he's getting thrown around more and more. Kaede flinches after one really bad throw, and you wonder again if letting her watch at all was a bad idea. Then Jake walks up to him and puts a foot on his shoulder, and _you_ flinch, thinking of how he stomped Kotetsu into the ground last night. "We are now seeing Revenge Boy lost in despair," the girl says, and Kaede sits up straighter.

"He is _not_," she says. "He's _planning._"

You kind of doubt that, as Jake kicks him to the ground and he just lies there on his back, but what can you say? You have to hope he has something in mind, too, after all, and at the same time, you're imagining having millions of lives on your shoulders at that age. You're wondering about Kotetsu, in the hospital, if he's awake. If he'll ever be awake. Jake gets right up in the camera lens - pasty complexion, jailhouse tattoos, fingernails gnawed to rags - gloating about his two powers. He really does think he's a video game boss. He's giving out hints.

But Barnaby gets back up - Kaede cheers a little - and gets sent flying again, and again. Thirty times, according to that obnoxious girl who won't shut up about Mister Jake. He powers up, but it keeps happening, and you try to make eye contact with Mom, wondering if there's going to come a time when Kaede should be hustled out of the room.

"They have a plan," Kaede says, with complete certainty. "That's got to be why he held off on using his powers for so long. He's stalling for time while the other heroes do something."

There are only, what, two or three left? "Maybe so," you say, even though you probably shouldn't. Kotetsu wouldn't play dead, and if Antonio's still anything like the hot-headed little punk you remember when they were in high school, he probably wouldn't either. Barnaby goes flying again, onto some roof or something. The Jake-cam doesn't have anything to show, so it goes from "Ouroboros TV" to "HeroTV," and the scene cuts to a distance shot, from a helicopter or something, probably. It zooms in hurriedly, and-

"What the hell?" you blurt out, at about the same time Mom gasps "Masaka!" It's Kotetsu, wearing civilian clothes, coming up behind Barnaby; you think he might be favoring one side, limping a little, but it's hard to tell. The kid staggers, and Kotetsu catches him.

"That's Wild Tiger! Why isn't he in his suit?" Kaede even knows what he looks like in civvies, and hasn't made the connection? But then, obliviousness runs in the family. You're wondering more why he's not in his hospital bed, but at least you know he's not a vegetable. Barnaby jumps back from Kotetsu like he's been burned, and the announcer says "We have no audio for whatever Barnaby and Wild Tiger are discussing. Again, for those just joining us, Wild Tiger has suddenly returned to the scene and is speaking with Barnaby-"

Barnaby turns to walk away from him, turns back, the announcer keeps talking - "does Wild Tiger have a plan, or some kind of insight for Barnaby?" - and Kaede keeps glancing anxiously at the clock. Kotetsu hands the kid something. They talk for a few seconds more, and Kaede's starting to get twitchy. "How long does he have?" you ask her.

"Less than a minute! Why's Wild Tiger slowing him down?"

"Maybe he has an idea," you say. Jake blasts something up at them, and you get a glimpse of Kotetsu falling back onto his ass on the roof... overhang, whatever it is, then pushing himself back up with one hand. The other's clutching his side. Yeah, he's definitely hurt, but they're back to the Jake-cam, and you just see through Jake's legs as Barnaby looks up, then towards Jake. He throws something in the air - what the hell was your idea, Kotetsu? - and charges. Things get a little confusing then. Jake covers his ears with his hands and dodges; he blasts something at the kid; the camera falls over and the screen goes white, and then it's Hero TV again, from above, and the kid kicks Jake and sends _him_ flying for a change. Kaede shrieks, Mom has her hands over her mouth, you feel like you just said something though you don't know what, and Barnaby jumps up after Jake and grabs him by the throat.

You can see Kotetsu right there, and you wonder if he's going to let this kid kill somebody right in front of him. Granted, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy, but it doesn't seem very heroic. And then Barnaby drops him, the lights on his suit go off, and all three of you exhale at the same time. "They did it," Mom says softly.

"He did it!" Kaede yells, bouncing out of her chair, and you sag against the wall, glad it's not having any problems standing upright for now. On the screen, Barnaby's pushed his faceplate up, he and Kotetsu are talking, and then it cuts to cheering crowds in Stern Bild, their voices a dull roar. Some of them must be seeing themselves onscreen, because they start waving and making faces at the cameras. You guess they must be used to this kind of thing, in the city.

The camera cuts to a scene covered in ice, Blue Rose cheerily announcing they've destroyed all the powered exosuits - which you'd practically forgotten about, over the last twenty-four hours - and then to Fire Emblem, pretending to make out with a slightly scorched pink teddy bear. You can't ever see Fire Emblem without remembering the awkward conversation about human sexuality you tried to have with Kaede (you lost the game of rock-paper-scissors against Mom) who let you squirm for a while before she finally told you she knew all about that already. Dragon Kid, that's the third hero - she's barely any older than Kaede, you think, but maybe it's like how thirty-year-olds play teenagers on TV. Kaede's practically dancing around the room, and Mom just sips her tea and smiles.

"Guess I ought to go open the store," you say. The regulars will be wanting to chew this over, and you can watch all the replays and interviews there.

"You think I can call Dad?" Kaede asks, before you're out of the room.

"Not just yet," you say. "They lost a lot of cell phone towers. I bet the call wouldn't even go through."

"When do you think I can?"

"Uh..." You look at Mom. "Give it a day or two?"

"I just want to tell him how awesome Barnaby was!"

"I'm pretty sure he knows," you say.

"Everyone in Stern Bild was watching," Mom adds. "There's no way he wouldn't know."

* * *

You watch the news about the aftermath pretty closely. Kotetsu was apparently still in the hospital when Kaede called him, and he had to keep all the heroes in the room, including Barnaby, dead silent while Kaede rhapsodized about Barnaby. Which you find out when he calls Mom, late the next day, to complain, and you watch over his shoulder. "Like he's not smug enough," Kotetsu grumbles, but he sounds a lot more fond than you would have expected from the way the kid talked about him.

"You still in the hospital?" you ask.

"Hey, bro. Didn't see you there. No, I got out today. Not supposed to do any heavy lifting for a few more weeks, though."

"And he's actually going to listen to his doctors this time, _right?_" Mom adds.

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Let me guess, you made it worse by getting up."

He laughs, but doesn't say anything. Figures.

"You and your partner getting along?" you ask.

"Better," he says. "A lot better. He was mad at me when you talked to him. Long story."

"Sounded like it." You're surprised the kid even mentioned it. "I'll leave you and Mom to talk. Don't do anything stupid."

It's true, Barnaby starts giving Kotetsu credit for the plan against Jake in the interviews he gives once he's out of the hospital, which has to be nice for Kotetsu given that he's sucked up praise like a Hoover vacuum since he was tiny. The news continues to run recaps of the Jake thing - for people who've just crawled out from under rocks and didn't hear about it while it was happening, apparently - and follow-ups on the casualties and the rebuilding, but it tapers off over time.

Winter turns into spring, and Mom plants her garden, drafting you to carry the big bags of mulch and plant food and potting soil from the nursery. Hero TV comes back, and Kotetsu's doing better; Mom says it sounds like he finally figured out teamwork. You watch the show in the store, sometimes. Spring turns into summer, school lets out, and Kaede sometimes drops by the store when she's bored. Maybe you shouldn't let her, but hell, it never hurt you any when you were young. Sometimes she brings friends around and you tell them about the differences in different kinds of alcohol, hoping you can demystify it a little, keep them from going nuts when they get to college, without giving them samples, because their parents would probably have opinions about that. The air conditioning on the van goes out in the middle of July, which is tons of fun, but it keeps you busy trying to pull together all the old parts you need so a mechanic friend can help you fix it. You enjoy the tinkering, if not doing the deliveries without AC. Summer turns into fall; Kotetsu's jumped halfway up the charts, and Barnaby's their MVP or King or whatever. Kaede and Mom are still watching the awards ceremony when you close up the bar and head home.

Kotetsu calls you the day after the ceremony, out of the blue, while you're at the store. "You busy?" he asks.

"Nah. It's pretty quiet in the afternoons until people start coming in for the bar. Little early for that. Something wrong?"

"What, something needs to be wrong for me to call you?"

"So you're just wanting to brag," you say, smiling as you wipe down the counter.

"Brag on my partner, you mean," he says. "Did you see his final score?" You'd seen some of their interviews, the whole mutual-admiration-society thing, but you figured that was played up for the cameras. Apparently not. He sounds kind of like Kaede, only with more talk about rescues and arrests and less about what kind of music Barnaby likes (she's asked for opera recordings for her birthday. You're getting her headphones, too.)

"I thought you didn't care about points," you say.

"Not for me," he says. "But with him it just shows how well he's doing, you know? It's like with Mr. Legend. He set the all-time record, but that wasn't what made him great - he was a great hero and that's _why_ he set the record. You know?"

"Kinda." It's always about Mr. Legend. "So why doesn't that apply to you?"

"I dunno," he says. "Maybe I'm just not that good."

Maybe he's fishing for compliments or maybe he's hedging, hard to tell. "Just happy to be the sidekick, huh?"

He laughs again. Maybe it's a little false this time, a little uncomfortable. "Who knows? I should let you go. You're bound to get some customers sooner or later."

"Yeah, probably so," you say. He just doesn't want to talk about it, or maybe think about it. "People are starting to get off work."

"Tell Mom I said hi," he says, and you agree, and you turn to unload the dishwasher behind the counter, getting the bar ready for the evening. Maybe he'll think about it, maybe not. He'll probably never tell you if he ever figures out his reason.

* * *

Kaede turns ten, and fall's starting to turn into winter when Kotetsu tells Mom he's coming home for a visit. "And Kaede's not even graduating from high school," you say.

"I know, I know, but you understand why he can't take time off more often," Mom says.

You don't, really - it's not like all the other heroes show up every week, and he and Barnaby miss episodes sometimes, too. You especially know about that second part, because Kaede complains bitterly about it every time it happens. "So what makes this week so special?" you ask.

"I don't know," Mom says, and she's frowning. "He missed Kaede's birthday, he missed the anniversary of Tomoe's death, and then he comes out for no reason in the middle of the week - but maybe it's nothing. Maybe this is just when they could spare him."

"Could be," you agree. So she's worried too. You miss Dad, right then; you and Dad would be making bets as to whether Kotetsu would actually say what was bothering him before he went back to the city. You can't do that kind of thing with Mom. She makes you promise to pick him up at the station, and you agree, since she's not such a great driver anymore, and he's supposed to arrive during the afternoon deliveries.

And he seems to think you don't have anything else to do than welcome the returning hero home. He's still the same annoying little brother he's always been, no matter how old both of you get, and you tell him to come by the bar that night. Easier than trying to have a talk at the house, where Mom and Kaede will be around, maybe overhearing, maybe, at least in Mom's case, dominating the conversation just by being around. Something's up. You can just sort of tell, and Mom's bound to see it too. If she doesn't get it out of him, maybe you can.

He comes to the bar and just wants to talk about how big Kaede's gotten, wondering where the time's gone. He didn't come home just for that. You can't figure what it is. Is he sick? Is he getting laid off? That doesn't seem too likely; he's doing better than he has in years. Is he seeing somebody? That doesn't seem like it'd throw him for a loop like this, but then again, if Kaede hates the idea... you finally just come out and ask. "What happened?"

He claims it's nothing, he tries to ignore the subject, he gets defensive, and then he finally breaks down and tells you. Twenty-five years ago he hated these powers, he worried about killing people with them, and now he's in tears at the thought of losing them. You're his big brother and there's never been a damn thing you could do to help him when it comes to this. It pisses you off, makes you feel helpless, and maybe that's as close as you can get, without powers of your own, to understanding how he feels right now. You can't even give him advice, really, just tell him to try not to worry, and then charge him for the drink just to mess with him.

It ends up being an eventful couple of days. Mom collapses, and Kaede, panicked, doesn't mention her back seized up on her; you call 911 while Kaede's waking Kotetsu, and race back to the house, thinking the whole time about Dad's heart attack, about the call on your voice mail, Mrs. Amamiya saying _I'm here with your mother,_ and how Mom's older now than Dad was back then. It's just her back, but Kaede's upset and Kotetsu doesn't get it and they have some kind of fight. There's no such thing as no big deal to Kaede, not when it's something happening to family, and seeing that firsthand, you think maybe Mom was right after all about keeping Kotetsu's job a secret. How much worse would it have been, during his fight with Jake, if she'd known that was her dad?

And then that afternoon, Kaede doesn't come home from school, and you shut down the store and drive all over town, while Kotetsu hunts on foot and Mom waits by the phone, but you've got a horrible feeling she went off into the mountainous parts, where there's no cell phone reception to speak of, and not too much by way of paths or roads. A kid got lost out there about five years back and froze to death; it's not the dead of winter now, but it's cold and wet and that's how people die of exposure. You know it has to be on Kotetsu's mind, and Mom's; you remember Mom scolding you when you were little for going off into the mountains. You're starting to think it's time to call the cops, get someone organizing search parties of more than two freaked-out relatives, but Kotetsu has some idea about his powers, and by some miracle it works; she happens to do something or say something while he's powered up, and without a word he tears off up the side of the mountain. You find the hiking path Kaede probably used, and follow the blue glow up as fast as you can. He eventually hits the path, too. Maybe he just got sick of fighting the underbrush. You get there just as he's carrying her out of the little shrine that's been a little closer to sliding right off the mountain every time you've been up here, and apparently picked now to finish the job.

It's a damned scary close call, but for a second all you can think is that if it wasn't raining so hard you should try recording this, because it's straight out of an action movie.


	3. Chapter 3

You're forty-one when you find out your niece is a NEXT. She and Mom come back from the train platform after saying goodbye to Kotetsu, Mom looking kind of frazzled and Kaede like she's about to burst. "Something happen?" you ask. You don't have any idea what, because Kaede looks pretty pleased with herself, unless Kotetsu let slip that he knows the great Barnaby or something.

"_Someone_ takes after her father," Mom says, climbing into the van - she never lets you help her up - and Kaede does a little twirl and says "I'm a NEXT!"

"Huh," is all you say, but you're thinking she couldn't take after her father less in reactions. But then, times have changed.

Times have changed, but some things haven't, and dealing with a young NEXT doesn't turn out to be something families get better at with practice. Mom says it's just like when Kotetsu got his powers, but you don't remember him destroying quite as many things as she does. Maybe it's just perspective. Back then you were a kid at home with him, watching things get broken and helping clean up the messes, and helping him hide some of them from your parents. Now you're an adult, and you check your phone midway through the afternoon. _The kitchen door,_ the first text reads, then _Frying pan and spatula,_ and _Kitchen wall,_ and _Kitchen TV,_ until you scroll up and see _Kaede broke her bedroom door,_ and _Kaede broke one of the kitchen chairs,_ then _She broke the bathroom sink,_ and so on. So you drop by during the deliveries to see if she was exaggerating. Turns out she wasn't.

Of course, part of it may be the fact that Kaede, unlike Kotetsu, actually does things in the kitchen. Or used to, before Mom convinced her to go do homework. Kotetsu wasn't bending skillets and spatulas into abstract sculptures because Kotetsu never made himself a grilled cheese sandwich if he could con you into doing it for him. You help Mom patch things up, promise you'll pick up at least some replacement cookware, and go back outside.

Kaede's waiting. "Can I come with you?" she asks. "I mean, I could actually help if the van stalled and you needed someone to push it!"

"You insulting my van?" you ask, mock-offende, but you can see she just wants to come up with something her powers could do beside breaking things. She goes blue right then. You wish you could remember when the time limit kicked in for Kotetsu. It'd be nice to have an end in sight. "Hop in," you say. "Don't touch the dashboard, though." She tears the seat upholstery a little, but it's been cracking anyway. So while you drive, you tell her about her dad's powers, how your parents told him not to touch anything or anyone, and you play up some of the stories of his destructive tendencies to make her laugh.

"Why didn't Grandma ever tell me Dad was a NEXT before?" she asks.

"Back when we were kids, a lot of people really didn't like NEXTs. Some still don't. So it was just kind of habit, keeping it quiet, not telling anybody. It wasn't exactly a secret from you, just wasn't something we talked about."

"Should I keep my power a secret?"

It'll be hard to, at the rate she's going. "I dunno. Your grandma and dad are probably the best ones to help you decide that."

"I was going to ask why Dad never tried to be a hero, but if his power is like this, I guess that explains it. He'd break things even worse than Wild Tiger does."

Stay stone-faced. Don't even crack a smile, you tell yourself. "Yeah, a klutz like him... Well, here we are." Last delivery of the day. Good thing, too. She's getting a little too close to the secret for comfort.

Most of the deliveries you make are to local restaurants, but there are a couple of individual customers who put in orders, too - mostly folks out in the hills, who'll put in an order every couple of months and have it hold them for a while. You don't really go out of your way to get more customers like that, but you keep making deliveries to the ones you have. Mr. Menendez is one of those - he goes back to your father's day, and he's probably a bit older than Dad would have been. Kaede jumps out, but you shake your head. "It's too unpredictable. You might end up throwing them in the air or crushing the box."

"Can't I at least follow you in?"

"Well, sure. Stretch your legs." You pick up the first box - Mr. Menendez always gets one of beer and one of spirits - and Kaede very, very carefully pushes the doorbell, then grins triumphantly when it doesn't crack under her thumb.

He lets you in, greets her with "And you must be little Kaede," and you carry the box into the kitchen; in the hallway, you can hear him telling her how much she looks like Tomoe and Kotetsu. She's denying the Kotetsu part.

"Getting her started young?" he asks you, when you come back in with the second box.

"This way maybe she'll come back after she skates in the Olympics," you say. "So I can retire."

"I'm not good enough for the _Olympics,_" she says, but she sounds pleased. She's telling him about her figure-skating while you get the box situated. When you come back you shake hands with him, and he musses Kaede's hair and tells her he'll be watching for her in the winter Olympics.

She's able to open the door of the van without incident, which is good since you didn't think to stop her. "He was nice," she says, as you're driving back to town. "Did he know my mom and dad?"

"A long time ago, yeah. Before they were even married, back when they were in high school. He was an old friend of your grandpa's. He used to hang out in the bar all the time when he was younger, and so would they. Your dad and I used to do our homework there."

"Could I do that?" she asks.

"Better wait till you get your power under control. Lot of glass bottles in the store, and the authorities don't tend to like it when ten-year-olds smell like whiskey."

"I'm doing better already! I didn't break the doorbell, or the car door..."

"You'll get there in no time," you agree, because it's been all of one day and you know that feels like a longer time when you're ten than it does to you right now.

* * *

And then you get her back to the house, step inside to get a drink of water, and all the kitchen utensils she mangled earlier today come flying out of the sink and off the counter towards the two of you. She screams, you let out a not-very-manly yelp of your own, and Mom dives for the phone. "I'm a magnet now?" Kaede wails. "Get them off me!"

So while Mom's on the phone to Kotetsu, you try to pry a cooking pot off of her. This is a lot like Mr. Menendez; when you and Kotetsu were kids he used to use his power on those steel Sapporo cans, bring them flying from across the room just to show off. He was about the only other NEXT either of you knew, growing up. Maybe he'll have some advice on controlling this ability. When you've got Kaede free of cookware you're going to call him.

At least her magnetism doesn't seem to be as powerful as her strength. You can hear pots and pans rattling in the cabinets, but none have burst out through the doors to cling to her. Yet.

After about ten minutes - Mom gets involved too, taking a twisted skillet to another room until the pull gives out - you decide to try another way. "Kaede, you know how magnets work? I mean, the way you can try to push two together and they'll resist, that whole positive and negative charge thing?"

"Yeah," she says, sounding harassed, as she passes the spatula to Mom like a baton. Pulling it after her, Mom heads out the door.

"Think about reversing your charge."

"I don't know how to do that!" she protests, but she closes her eyes and thinks. A minute later, her jaw clenches, and you have to duck as everything goes flying away from her and crashes to the floor.

"Now you do," you say. Mom comes running back in to check on you both.

* * *

Somehow or other you're the family expert on NEXT abilities tonight; you're the one who thinks to have her test her strength, and you find that it's apparently gone where it came from. She got Kotetsu's Hundred Power, the unpredictable, irregular version he had when he was young, and then she got Mr. Menendez's magnetic ability. Is it just proximity to NEXTs? No, she touched him; they shook hands. That's probably what does it.

You finally go back to the store - you're going to need to hire somebody to help out around here, you think, if things are going to stay this crazy - and so you miss the moment Kaede and Mom both lose patience with Kotetsu. Mom tells you about it that night when you get home, and you find yourself taking his side, for once. It's only fair to give him a little time, you say, no matter what he said at first. He needs to pack up his belongings, he may have some commitments to finish off before he comes home for good, and even in a normal job they ususally expect two weeks' notice. He might need to film a certain number of ads or give a certain number of interviews before he's through, for all you know.

"That may be, but how am I supposed to explain that to Kaede?" Mom protests, and you don't have an answer for that. At least, not one she'll like.

"You could tell her," you say. "It's not like she needs to keep it a secret for much longer."

"You're assuming he's actually going to go through with it," Mom complains, and what can you say to that? You don't think he reached a decision like this lightly, but even if you convince Mom, Kaede's not going to believe it till she sees it.

* * *

Two days later, your baby brother is accused of murder on live TV. You're watching the news, waiting for one of the regulars to finish filling her basket, when his picture flashes on the screen. Wanted for the murder of some woman named Samantha Taylor - sixty-eight, close to Mom's age, how would he even have met this woman? - and they're sending the heroes after him. What on earth? Is this some kind of publicity stunt? How bizarre. The murder charge is obviously a mistake of some kind, but why get his coworkers involved?

"Any relation?" Ms. Kamiya asks, coming up to the counter.

"Yeah," you say, still feeling a little stunned. "That's my brother."

"No way! Of course he didn't do it?"

You shake your head, and mechanically start scanning the bottles. "It's got to be some kind of mix-up. He's the kind of person who helps little old ladies across the street, you know? If they have fingerprints it's probably something like that. I just hope he doesn't do anything stupid before it's sorted out." You ring her up, she pays, and you miscount her change twice before you get it right.

"Good luck to him," she says, and you thank her absently, already reaching for your phone. The nice thing about running your own business is that you don't have to answer to anyone but yourself if you decide to half-ass closing the store.

* * *

You're on your way to Stern Bild, once again, chasing a wayward ten-year-old NEXT who took off for the city without telling anyone. You try to call her a few times, but mostly you want to save your phone's batteries to help you get around the city. Mom's going to be calling her, anyway; if she gets through, she'll call you. You're hoping Kaede will run out of steam, or money, once she gets there, and not get too far from the station. What's she hoping to do, exactly? Find Kotetsu? Talk sense into the heroes? Where would she even go? She doesn't know her way around the city. She does have Kotetsu's address, so that gives you a couple of places to try to go; the Apollon Media building, Kotetsu's house, the police station downtown, the Justice Building. She's not going to find Kotetsu at his house, and she won't have a key, so that's your last resort.

And all this because Mom finally told Kaede the truth. In Kaede's head, he switched from being her stupid, promise-breaking dad to a hero who's in trouble

You kind of wish you could have spared the time to take the bus, where they have TV and might be running the news - the manhunt for Kotetsu is shaping up to be a big media circus, the kind of thing that takes over the news until it's finished, but the train's not just faster, it's a quieter, more relaxing experience without built-in TV. So you just follow the Hero TV Pwitter. Kotetsu was spotted near the Hero TV studio, but ran away. He tried to go to his house and was intercepted there by Dragon Kid, Origami Cyclone and Rock Bison. What the hell, Antonio. He escaped again and his whereabouts are unknown. Blue Rose, Fire Emblem and _Wild Tiger_ had an encounter with him? What the hell is going on? Lunatic helped him escape? Who's Lunatic? You look up Lunatic online for something to do, and then, confused, you look up Wild Tiger as well.

You haven't fallen into another world or something; Wild Tiger's still all over the internet, still Kotetsu, still looking kind of like a mecha in that new suit. So why does the news think he's a separate person? Is there an impersonator running around?

And then Kotetsu apparently decides to go to the roof of his company's building and get all the heroes to come to him, so this has to be a publicity stunt or something, right? Kotetsu's kind of reckless and impulsive but he's not a moron. But if it's a publicity stunt, why would he want his real name revealed?

* * *

You can't get to the Apollon building or the Justice Tower - the area's being evacuated in anticipation of a big NEXT brawl - so you try Kaede a few more times, call Mom to tell her what you've learned, and park yourself in what's apparently the Medaille Plaza to watch a giant TV broadcasting the news. Kotetsu, it turns out, actually is a moron. Or maybe the announcer's right and he's lost his mind, because he's on TV, in his old costume - no armor, no nothing, and at what, two-thirds of his full power? - swearing up and down that he, Kotetsu T. Kaburagi, is Wild Tiger. Good job protecting your identity, Kotetsu. All the heroes start trying to arrest him, which anyone except Kotetsu would have foreseen. If he lives through this and isn't in prison afterwards, you're going to have to smack him senseless.

And then Kaede turns up on the scene.

You dial the house, staring at the TV the whole time. "Muramasa? What-"

"Good news, Mom. I found her."

"Both of my sons are idiots," she says, in Japanese, and hangs up on you.

Whatever Kaede does knocks out the broadcast, so that leaves you completely in the dark. The crowd gradually disperses, over the next hour or so, and you flag down a cab and try to head for the Apollon building again. Traffic's jammed, but they're at least letting people through, now. You're able to get within about ten blocks of the building before you finally give up, pay the cabbie and step out onto the sidewalk. The sidewalk and eventually the road is packed with pedestrians who want to see what's going on, and you begin the process of oozing through the crowd and toward your goal. The crowd is buzzing about the whole thing, so you can at least get some news that way; you've never heard your family name mangled so many ways in such a short period of time, but you're able to find out that Tiger and Barnaby are apparently doing some kind of motorcycle race or something? Chasing the murderer, they figure.

Maybe it's Stern Bild that makes people insane, you think.

* * *

You're on the phone with your mother in the lobby of the Apollon Media building late that night, surprised no one's kicked you out. The two of you are discussing the merits of going to the police - Mom thinks you should, you think it's going to create all kinds of problems - when the TV flashes something about Hero TV, plays its little musical sting, and switches to a shaky view of a good-looking woman in a headset, explaining in a faint foreign accent that they've located the heroes. You and Mom both fall silent as you watch.

The heroes have been missing since communications were knocked out during the rooftop confrontation, except for sightings of Tiger and Barnaby in a high-speed motorcycle chase. (She still doesn't say who was being chased. Or were they chasing each other?) They now have an audio link but no visual. Wild Tiger is dead, she says. What? No. Where is that coming from? How do they know? Apollon Media CEO and OBC President Albert Maverick is revealed to be the mastermind behind today's events. Okay. What events? Did he frame Kotetsu? What happened to Kotetsu? You get up and pace around, not even worried anymore about staying inconspicuous. He's an old man in a suit, he could be any rich old white man, and he turns and runs from the camera. The heroes give chase, and the camera returns to the French lady, who starts explaining that Maverick was trying to kill the heroes. And she seems to think he was successful in one case. You can't sit still; you hang up the phone without saying goodbye to your mother, stuff your phone and your hands in your pockets. The heroes are looking for this Maverick, and no one's telling you the two things you need to know.

Until you see Kaede on TV for the second time tonight, with a gun to her head. You feel cold, sick, queasy and helpless and scared, and then a shadow moves onscreen, the camera jerks to the right, and Kotetsu's standing up and punching this asshole in the face.

"Kotetsu!" you whoop, and people are staring at you, but it couldn't possibly matter less right now.

* * *

You aren't able to get anywhere near the site, in the end, but Kaede finally answers her phone and tells you what hospital they're going to, so you can take a cab there. It's nearly three in the morning when you finally lay eyes on Kaede in person. She's sitting in the hospital's entrance lobby next to Antonio. They both kind of look like they got hit by a truck that backed up over them just to be sure it got the job done, but Kaede's face lights up at the sight of you, and then she bursts into tears.

"Aw, jeez, Kaede, don't..." Antonio pleads, but you just sling an arm around her neck and rope her into a hug. It's not something your family does much.

"Can't blame her," you say. "She's had a long day. I should get her someplace to sleep and see Kotetsu tomorrow."

"No!" she protests, shoving off your stomach. You're not sure if she was trying to hit you or just being emphatic. "You need to see Dad. I'll be fine." It'd be more plausible if she could stop sniffling, but you get some tissues from the reception desk and the three of you head for the elevator.

Barnaby's in surgery, Kotetsu says; they're both going to be in the hospital for a while. Kotetsu looks battered all over, more like somebody put him in a jar and shook it vigorously than anything else you can think of; you still don't know exactly what got him nearly killed He's pretty blitzed on painkillers, and he's not totally sure where to send you to find his house keys - maybe his transport, whatever that is, maybe his friend Ben's cab, _where_ever that is, and then he starts worrying that he might have dropped them during one of the fights - but "once you get in, the couches are still there, my bed and stuff..."

"Forget about the keys," Antonio says. "For now. I got a fold-out couch and a guest room. You two are both staying with me. We'll buy whatever you need."

You kind of want to kiss him, honestly, because Kaede's falling asleep standing up and you didn't want to make Antonio kick open Kotetsu's door, but Kotetsu takes care of the embarrassing displays for you, hugging Antonio's arm and thanking him repeatedly. Antonio extricates himself, and you halfway ruffle Kotetsu's hair like he's a kid again - though there was a lot less sweat and mousse in his hair back then - and tell him not to do anything stupid overnight, and the three of you zombie-lurch back the way you came and on out of the hospital. You're not the walking wounded like they are, you've just spent the whole day worrying and confused and lost, but you still feel dead on your feet, and you don't put up much of a fight when Antonio says he'll drive. It's his car, after all.

The store he takes you to is one you've never heard of before, something called Star Mart, but it it's open all night, it sells clothes - Kaede put a change in her backpack, but you didn't - and the other stuff you'll need for the next few days. Kotetsu's going to be laid up for a while, and probably not in any shape to get his things home even once he's out of the hospital. Mom can run the store, or come spell you, but you're not leaving Kaede and Kotetsu alone.

* * *

Leaving them alone turns out not to be a problem; Kotetsu's sharing a room with Barnaby, and they get a steady stream of visits from heroes in civilian clothes, who all greet Kaede by name; Sky High nearly shakes your hand off your wrist, while Origami Cyclone bows and greets you in heavily-accented Japanese. Fire Emblem brings a pair of teenage girls who turn out to be Blue Rose and Dragon Kid. Dragon Kid's barely any older than Kaede, though the name was kind of a tip-off there. You're a little creeped out to learn how young Blue Rose really is. Kotetsu could have let you know at some point, you think.

Eventually, the three of them take off with Kaede and Antonio - Fire Emblem has a hand in Antonio's back pocket despite Antonio's efforts at dislodging him - to get lunch, and that leaves you with Kotetsu and a sleeping Barnaby. Kotetsu tried to send you with them, but you resisted, because you have things you need to know. "Time to face the music," you tell him.

"What part?" Kotetsu asks, looking like he's going to try to laugh it off.

"Tell me what happened... yesterday? Last night? My sense of time's screwed up," you say. "Half of what happened wasn't on TV. Hell, I don't even know why you didn't come back right away like you promised."

"That was... Bunny was having problems," Kotetsu says in an undertone, glancing at the blond kid in the other bed. What you notice isn't the boy, though - asleep, without glasses, he looks ridiculously young - but the way Kotetsu looks at him, worried and almost tender. "The whole thing with the frame-up, that was Maverick. He was a NEXT, he could change people's memories, and he was Bunny's guardian. So that's - his memory was going nuts, and I couldn't just leave him like that, and then - is any of this making sense? Where do I start?"

"Still pretty drugged-up, huh?" you say. "Forget the background stuff. What happened in the tower? First I hear you're dead, then you... what the hell was that, you came back from the depths of hell? What kind of cheesy line was that?"

"Hey, I thought it sounded cool!"

"We'll worry about your delusions later. What happened?"

"_Kaede_ thought I was cool," he says stubbornly. You refrain from snorting. Kaede's ten - what does she know about cool either? "What happened was this robot we had to fight - they had a robot that looked like me, like my hero suit, I mean, and we had to fight it, me and Bunny, with our powers out of commission, and it was _armed to the teeth,_ it had this sword thing that could cut through metal, and a, like, laser gun... I didn't know at first, I just knew it had its own version of my wires, and then it pulls this giant rifle out and _zzzzPOW!_"

No matter how old he gets, your baby brother is still down in there, under several layers of adulthood, running full-tilt into things without a plan, making laser-gun noises as he tells you how he nearly got his dumb ass killed.

* * *

He just barely finishes it up before the heroes return with sandwiches - and Origami Cyclone, who'd vanished earlier in the day but apparently ran into them on their way back to the hospital - so you don't get to learn all the rest, like what was going on with Barnaby's memory. But this seems to have opened the floodgates; over the next couple of days, when you're around and he's not otherwise occupied, he starts telling you things in bits and pieces: explaining about Barnaby's memory when Barnaby's asleep; about the frame-up and his time on the lam; about how he and Barnaby got into a fight while Barnaby and Kaede are both there, which gets him Kaede's forgiveness because she didn't know he was trying to help Barnaby, and Barnaby's not-very-well-concealed irritation. "Why didn't you just _tell_ me?" he demands, when Kaede leaves for the restroom. "If not about your powers, then about the fact Kaede needed you!"

"It, I, uh," Kotetsu stammers, and you go to get a drink from the vending machine, leaving him to flail through this on his own. He panicked, probably. Or he couldn't see a way to explain Kaede needing him without admitting about his powers. But your guess is, whether he knew it or not, he didn't want to look old, lame, impotent; he wanted to look cool and in control. To you, one of the benefits of getting old was not needing to look cool anymore. You can like whatever crappy music you want, ignore what's trendy for what's comfortable, drive an old clunker and shave only when you feel like it. Then again, Kotetsu apparently admitted his power loss eventually - there's cell phone video of him telling the other heroes, and a formal statement from Hero TV - so maybe he's getting the idea. Better late than never.

They seem to be on good enough terms when you come back to the room, anyway, even when Kaede, inspired by your soda, leaves to get one of her own. Kotetsu's getting discharged the next day; so is Barnaby, but he's due for physical therapy, apparently. Either way, you and Antonio are going to be the ones loading Kotetsu's stuff into his car. Kotetsu's retiring, for real, under Kaede's close supervision. He's coming back home.

He's going to spend the whole drive back to Oriental Town, six neverending hours if you speed, telling you and Kaede all about all the heroics he's ever done. You know him too well to expect anything less. Maybe he'll stick to the stories that make him look good, or maybe he'll tell all about his hilarious failures, too; how it shakes out may tell you whether he's learning, anyway.

* * *

He's been back home a week, recuperating, eating all the snacks in the house, and tottering around like he's re-learning how to walk, before he shows up at the store looking perfectly healthy. He's dressed casually, like the buttoned-up, tailored look is as much a part of the hero costume as the suit itself and he can't wear it around his hometown, but he's been keeping his beard neat religiously. "Hey, bro," he says, sounding almost timid compared to how he usually is. "You need any help around the store?"

You eye him appraisingly. Was the hobbling around the house malingering, or is it okay to have him lift things? "Did Mom send you?"

"Mom wanted me to pick up some milk and... uh." He pulls out his cell phone. "Something else. I wrote it down. I just, y'know, figured I'd ask while I was in town."

"So you couldn't start right away." Just as well; Mom pulled through like a champ, but she hadn't worked in the store in ten years, and you've changed things since Dad's day, so of course she missed some details. You're only just starting to feel like you've got everything mopped up. He didn't really answer the question, but he may not know either. Mom might have had an ulterior motive behind the errand or she might not.

"Nah, not yet. Doc said I shouldn't do any heavy lifting for another two weeks." He glances at the phone. "Mushrooms. That's the other thing she wanted." He puts it away, but he looks kind of fidgetty without it. "If you don't need any help or anything, no problem, I just figured I'd ask. If there's not enough work for two people..."

"Not really," you say.

"Okay. Just checking. I'd better go get the groceries, then," he says, and he actually looks kind of downcast.

So it was his idea. "Kotetsu," you say.

"Yeah?" He turns, hand on the door handle.

"I could use somebody to mind the store while I'm doing deliveries. Just part-time, but it'd get you out of the house." He nods, not looking a whole lot happier, and testing an idea, you continue, "And some help in the stockroom when I get shipments. I could train you on the register for now, and worry about the rest when you're recovered."

He starts smiling, then, and you realize you were right. "Yeah," he says. "That sounds good. So, like, tomorrow?"

Yeah, he was wanting to spend time with you, not just trying to be helpful or get Mom off his back. "Yeah," you agree. "Tomorrow. You'll have to wake up before noon, though."

"Slavedriver," he says, grinning as he turns to go.


End file.
